


winged/wicked things

by Tinuviel



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Major SHB spoilers, shoebill theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 09:17:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19989718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tinuviel/pseuds/Tinuviel
Summary: the warrior of light finds a feathered companion in their dreamsMAJOR MSQ SPOILERS





	winged/wicked things

**Author's Note:**

> gestures wildly???? shoebill??? I woke up with that left from my dreams and then this happened I guess 
> 
> Title is from Winged/Wicked Things by Sunset Rubdown

there is a bird in your dreams.

you begin to see it after your first night in crystarium.

dark feathered, large billed, it watches you with almost impatient eyes, as if it’s waiting for you to do something interesting.

you dream changes, the scenery changes, but that bird remains, unfazed and unflappable. Various scenes of violence and war spill from your memories, and that dark bird merely watches.

you become used to your feathered companion, it is unmoved as it watches the twisting knot of your dreams, half memories, half imagined, your dreams have ever been strange and it does not surprise you that you’re conscious of the fact. Perhaps the bird is an omen, or an important part of the future. the echo has appeared to you in stranger ways before. 

you ask it questions and you get no answers, the bone deep expectation of the bird is the only response.

the world of the first is unmade and made by your hands, returned night, eternal sun. your dreams turn sickly and pale as the light builds in your chest, as the light burns and blights you with failure.

you’re not as conscious in your dreams as you once were, robbed of even your prenatal gifts by the sun writhing beneath your skin, so it’s with some surprise that the bird returns. you have not figured out what it means, and if your condition keeps up, you never will. you look for the expectation in its golden eyes, and find none of it. there is an emotion there you can’t quite place, one you never expected to see in the eyes of a bird no less. 

it makes you sad, it makes you ache. the resignation of an eternal parting, the sorrow of not being able to change fate.

when you wake, your pillow is wet, and you do not think these are the tears of pain you shed the first time the tumultuous aether in your breast threatened to undo you.

there is little sleep the coming days and you do not see that bird again until you’re fathoms below the ocean. unexpectedly, you are not asleep, the bird is real, flesh and feather, somehow standing and breathing the same fae created air you are. 

if alphinaud and the rest notice you lock eyes with a bird for several minutes, they do not say anything, they do not say anything when your hands shake, or when a cough into your hand comes back glittering white, so why would a staring contest with a bird be any different.

in a glittering metropolis beneath the waves, born of aether, born of sorrow, history is remade and rewritten. you stand opposite a man both friend and enemy, a gaping hole in his chest, a gaping hole in your heart. he asks you to remember, and you will, you will, you will.

tears of relief, you tell them.

tears of grief, you tell yourself.

when the crystarium can finally drag itself from celebrating, and your tired feet can stand no more. you find your bed and sleep, for once with no molten core hanging in your ribs.

the vision in your dream is expected, from your high perch you can see how amaurot sprawls and stretches, tall buildings with rows of shimmering light, alien and beautiful, a marvel of a city.

it is lonely.

it is lonely and sad, and it fills you up with more emotion than you know what to do with. it is known and unknown, it is home and a foreign city, it is a mystery at the bottom of the ocean, it is the place where your answers lie.

or it had been, before the only person with the answers to this feeling had been unraveled like a skein of thread before your eyes.

you sit, mulling over your ever shifting destiny, when there is a noise beside you, loud enough you noticed, faint enough you didn’t jump.

it is that bird again.

it looks at you with those sad eyes again, no expectations, no judgement, just a strange and sad bird that you hadn’t quite figured out yet.

on impulse, you do something you’ve never done.

you reach toward the bird, slowly, gently, you do not understand its presence in your dreams but it is still a wild animal in appearance. If you had breath in a dream, you would be holding it. hand extended, you wait, you wait, you wait.

the bird leans into your hand. it is solid and soft, feathers feeling like clouds against your fingers. you stroke it softly, and it closes those aged gold eyes in contentment.

you wake up to the dawn, natural and temporary. you go about your routine, dressing and readying yourself for another busy day, when you finally turn back to your bed and notice something odd on top of your pillow.

it is a lone long feather, beautiful in shape and colour, soft and clean to your hand.

it is the same colour as that bird, the bird both real and imaginary, and fills you with that same emotion that the city both real and imaginary gave you. 

a sense of wonder, a sense of sorrow, a place you will return to one day, but not quite as you left it.

you tuck the feather to your breast, it will live beside the promise you made in the ruins of an ancient city, and you will remember both in dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> shoebill theory both ruined my life and saved it at the same time


End file.
